A guard at the Cuyahoga Hills Juvenile Correctional Facility in Highland Hills keeps watch as inmates go to class in this 2006 photo. Cuyahoga Hills is one of three remaining youth detention facilities operated by the state.Dale Omori, The Plain Dealer

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An agreement reached between the Justice Department and the state of Ohio over use of seclusion for punishment at juvenile facilities ensures that the state will not infringe on the constitutional rights of youth detainees, a U.S. attorney said.

The practice was subject of multiple court actions against the state, including one by the Justice Department. Wednesday’s agreement, which also received backing from private plaintiffs, settles an action in which the Justice Department sought a temporary restraining order against the state.

“The most important thing in all of this is maintaining constitutional standards for protection of the rights of the kids in Ohio,” said Steven Dettelbach, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.

That goal is one that the state of Ohio took seriously, too, Dettelbach said.

“I don’t think they would have entered into it if they weren’t serious about protecting the rights of kids,” he said. “Quite frankly, while the negotiations were going on they were putting some of this in place.”

The case arose over concerns that the Ohio Department of Youth Services was using solitary confinement to punish boys with mental-health issues. At four DYS facilities, including one in Highland Hills, 229 boys with mental-health issues were kept in seclusion for a total of almost 60,000 hours in the last six months of 2013, the Justice Department said in court filings in March.

One boy spent almost 2,000 hours in solitary confinement over six months, federal officials said, while another was kept in seclusion for 21 straight days.

Many of the boys were on suicide watch, had suicidal thoughts or hurt themselves while in seclusion, according to the Justice Department.

“The way in which Ohio uses seclusion to punish youth with mental health needs victimizes one of the most vulnerable groups in our society,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Jocelyn Samuels said at the time.

On Wednesday, Samuels cheered the court agreement.

“The state of Ohio, the administrators of the Department of Youth Services and their counsel are to be commended for their commitment to reforming Ohio’s juvenile correctional facilities,” Samuels said in a statement. “Ohio’s commitments in this agreement will go a long way toward reducing the harm young people are experiencing in the state’s juvenile correctional facilities, especially young people with mental health needs.”

The agreement will phase out use of disciplinary seclusion for all youth eventually, said Kim Jump, the communications chief for the Department of Youth Services. Seclusion will still be used, but on a greatly limited bases and not as a punishment. It will become more of cooling off and assessment period, she said.

The order requires the state to implement quality assurance measures that monitor and assess the mental health and condition of youths in seclusion, generally eliminate the use of disciplinary seclusion on youth with mental-health needs, limit the duration of disciplinary seclusion when it is permissible and perform individualized treatment plan reviews and modifications to address violent behaviors, the Justice Department said.

To make sure the state is complying, monitors for the federal government and the private plaintiffs involved in the litigation will have several checkpoints they can use to mark the state’s progress.

“This agreement will provide significant relief to youth in DYS custody by ensuring they receive appropriate mental health treatment and are not subject to excessive seclusion,” Carter Stewart, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said in a statement. “Today, the state has taken an important step in rectifying the unconstitutional conditions in its juvenile correctional facilities.”

For their part, state officials have maintained they were not violating the detainees’ constitutional rights.

“We still maintain that there were no constitutional violations,” Jump said Wednesday. The state has always viewed the issue of constitutional rights for detainees as one to take seriously, she said.

“We’re pleased to reach an agreement with the plaintiffs so that we can focus on our primary mission of rehabilitating youth,” Jump said. “The [settlement] plan focuses on reducing violence, improving culture and moving away from using seclusion as a disciplinary tool.”

The Justice Department began investigating conditions at Ohio juvenile correctional facilities in 2007. It said there were constitutional deficiencies in the state’s use of physical force, mental-health care, grievance investigation and processing and use of seclusion.

Federal prosecutors sued the state in 2008, claiming the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility in Delaware excessively used seclusion as punishment and provided inadequate mental-health care, among other issues.

In 2008 the Justice Department entered into a consent decree with the state to remedy violations at the Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility and the since-closed Marion Juvenile Correctional Facility.

About the same time, private plaintiffs reached an agreement with the state regarding similar deficiencies at all of the state’s juvenile correctional facilities that they alleged in their suit.

Last year, though, the Justice Department threatened new litigation over claims that DYS shackled boys who previously were placed in seclusion, according to the motion filed in March.

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